Beginnings - "The Rain"

The Rain
Dull yellow rain drops blur and streak the clear outer cover on the portholes of the protective bio-dome capsule. The drops sizzle and bubble as they make contact with the thin strip of silver incorporated into the window casing.
It had been two long months since the brothers had escaped into the dome. Although they were now free from the rain, they could only watch helplessly as the world they knew smoldered around them. The boys lived on the rations stored by their father in the food preservation units lining the main corridor.
Ekterk, the eldest brother by seventeen months, spent most of his time and energy monitoring the power levels in the regenerating energy cells. Their father had assured both of them that the regeneration units should provide sufficient power to sustain life within the bio-dome for at least three years before disintegration.
As Etam, the younger of the brothers, gazed out of the porthole at the world that they had once known, his mind drifted back to the days following the retreat into the capsule. The rains had come back again. Etam’s own arms showed wicked scars from the drops which had struck and clung to him before he could find shelter. Those next few days were the hardest for both boys. They watched their father die, being eaten by the savage wounds sustained while saving the boys with a rush to the capsule. He reassured them, in those last few hours, that he was no longer in pain. but at the end only his eyes were alive. The rest of his body was a mass of smoldering burnt flesh and exposed, visibly yellowed bones. His shallowed breathing, his open and blistered chest finally slowed to a stuttered halt.
Their mother was taken in death years earlier during a raid of the people of the east. She had been away from the city, collecting the wild flowers father loved so much. The ones that reminded him so much of the years of his youth. The alarm was sounded. She had reached the outer city walls when they overtook her. Father had reached the outer gates in time to see her fall and fought viciously to get to her side. She was all but gone as he knelt to pick her up. The wild flowers were still clutched within her long delicate fingers. As father lifted her from the ground, her eyes opened and she smiled at him, a pained but beautiful smile. He had always noticed and loved her smile, even when they were children. She mouthed the words "I love you" and drifted away.
Father submersed himself in his research and experiments in the years following mother’s death. He created and perfected many of his projects while hibernating in his laboratory for weeks on end. The boys helped as best they could with their father’s work. Father delighted in his boys and in teaching them about life and the sciences.
The rains had begun slowly, mildly, at first, leaving rashes on exposed skin, polluting their natural water supplies, taking the smallest of the children. The panic had begun. The rains returned in ever increasing intervals, each time stronger then the previous. Father had completed the outer layers of his capsule. He seemed to know that it was to save his boy’s lives, at least for now.
Etam blinked away the memories as he again focused on the streaked porthole and the wilted and smoldering landscape of dark greens and browns beyond. It was a stark contrast to the sterile white interior which now surrounded them. In his mind, he could still hear the shreaks and moans of the suffering and dying which occurred outside the protective layers of the capsule walls. He shuttered involuntarily and turned away from the porthole.